Simply Heaven (26 page)

And then I add in a quick loving note at the end for good measure. ‘Arsehole,’ I say, and hang up.

I feel a bit better after that. Random name-calling is good for morale.

Back at the bar, a glass of something semi-opaque and brown awaits. It’s got a few globs of desultory froth on the top.

‘Get your mouth round that,’ says Ian, flicking at it with his tea-towel. ‘You’ll never drink your fizzy pop again.’

I take a sip. It’s delicious: nutty, bitter and sweet all in one mouthful, twice the density of the beer I’m used to, like drinking a chestnut tree.

‘Wow,’ I tell him. ‘That’s really something.’

‘Be poetry readings next,’ says the fella in the corner. ‘Sun-blushed
tomatoes
.’

‘You get hold of him?’ asks Ian.

‘I left a message. Just hope he gets it.’

‘It’s hours till closing time,’ says OUFC. ‘We don’t mind. You got a name, or shall we just call you Sheila?’

‘Melody Katsouris,’ I tell him.

He nods. ‘Paul.’

‘Hi, Paul.’

‘And this,’ he gestures to the man in the striped shirt, ‘is Derek. Only we call him Del-boy.’

‘Like on the telly,’ says Del-boy.

‘He’s a little bit bish, he’s a little bit bosh, he’s a little bit woooah,’ says Gary, and they all laugh. I guess barflies speak in secret code the world over.

‘And over there, that’s Samson.’

‘Hi, Samson,’ I raise a hand.

Gary lowers his voice to a stage whisper. ‘His mum had twelve kids,’ he tells me. ‘I think she ran out of inspiration.’

‘Why is he sitting over there?’

‘I’m playing dominoes,’ says Samson.

‘So what are you doing up this neck of the woods, Melody?’ asks Ian.

‘My old man’s a pom.’

‘Local?’

‘Just down the road.’

‘You’re covered in mud, you know,’ repeats Paul.

‘Soaking wet too.’ I’m surprised by how cheerfully I say this. I swallow another mouthful of beer. Beats the hell out of Edmund’s wine.

Del-boy offers me a cigarette. I take it, spark up. Accept another half of Hooky and look around me. I guess this must be a traditional British pub. Stone floor just inside the door, red-and-black-and-sludge patterned carpet everywhere else. Nicotine-coloured walls – whether by choice or habit is hard to tell without actually licking my finger and running it over a surface – and hard black beams from which hang several dozen dust-covered objects: a corn dolly; a bit of an old ploughshare; postcards from Benidorm, Tenerife, Kenya, Egypt; a giant cobweb in which a red-and-black butterfly lies mummified; a pair of copper warming pans. Behind the bar, handwritten signs read: ‘Please do not ask for credit, as a smack in the mouth often offends’, and ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps’. On the bar, a little collection of cruets, paper-napkin-lined plastic baskets full of cutlery, squeezy bottles in red and yellow and brown, and a huge jar of what look like pickled eggs.

‘So your old man live around here, then? Or are you just passing through?’

‘No. Just down the road.’

He raises his eyebrows, gives the pint glass in his hand a loving rub with a tea-towel. ‘Zat so? Where’s that, then?’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Ian,’ says a familiar female voice, ‘do you really want people to think you’re as stupid as you look? This is the poor sap who’s married Rufus Wattestone.’

It’s a relief to see her. She must have been in the ladies while I was making my dignified arrival. Nessa advances. ‘You’re looking glamorous tonight.’

‘I’ve been exploring the local amenities.’

‘I didn’t know we had a swimming pool.’

‘I don’t think it’s usually open in the winter. They opened it up just for me.’

Nessa laughs. ‘And they say you don’t need contacts to get the things you want. Paul! Do you not listen to a word I say? Didn’t I say we’d got an Aussie living down at the big house?’

‘She said her name was Katsouris,’ says Paul. ‘Not my fault if she’s a bra-burner.’

‘Melody, meet my first husband, Paul. Paul, this is Melody Katsouris, a.k.a. Mrs Charles Rufus Edmund Callington-Warbeck-Wattestone.’

‘Mel.’ I shake his hand.

‘Come and take a pew,’ says Nessa.

‘Don’t mind if I do.’

We settle at the table in the far corner of the bar, elbows on the surface and knees almost touching.

‘So how’s your evening shaping up, Mrs W? And what are you doing back already?’

‘I’d say I was just about ropeable,’ I tell her. And it’s such a relief to say it.

‘You don’t say,’ says Nessa. ‘What brings you to this genteel hostelry of a winter’s night?’

I fill her in on what’s happened to me so far. Leave out the ghosties and the ghoulies. I don’t want to be carted off on the strength of a figment of my imagination.

‘I just don’t get it,’ I finish. ‘None of it makes sense.’

‘Mmm,’ she agrees.

‘It’s just – weird.’

‘Well, it’s unlike them to all go out, certainly.’

‘And Mary didn’t say anything when I spoke to her. You’d have thought she’d have said something if she was …’

‘Well, it must have slipped her mind,’ says Nessa. ‘I mean. You’ve got a choice of interpretations, here. Either it slipped her mind or they were hiding in the cellar and pretending not to be in. I mean, which would you say was the more likely?’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘I mean. They’d have to be pretty much clinically insane …’

‘I know.’

‘So,’ she says.

I think for a minute. ‘They’re pretty odd people, though.’

Nessa laughs. ‘They are that. But I’ve got to say, there’s a difference between pretty odd and psychotic. I mean.’ Then, with typical Aussie overstatement, she says: ‘I get the impression you’re having a bit of trouble settling in.’

It’s as though someone’s opened the sluices on a dam. I’ve been holding it back so assiduously that the pressure is at bursting point.

‘How do you deal with it?’ I ask, all in a rush. ‘This country … these people are so … I don’t know. How do you
talk
to them?’

‘Oh, they’re not so bad. They’ve got kind hearts, most of them.’

‘The ones I’ve met before tonight?’

‘Mmm. You’ve got a point, I guess. Trouble with that lot, they’re so terrified of losing status they can’t loosen up for a minute.’

‘I get that.’ I wonder if I can trust her, and think: I have to talk to
someone
. Lower my voice, so the others can’t hear. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if I haven’t made some terrible mistake.’

As I say it, I feel a lurch of sadness. It all seemed so easy. So perfect. I was sure we would make it, certain I’d found my soulmate, and here I am less than a month later, telling a virtual stranger that I’m not sure any more.

She blinks a couple of times. ‘No,’ she says eventually. ‘No, you’ve not done that. But you’ve got your work cut out.’

‘Yeah, I’d guessed that much.’

We both pause as Ian arrives with another round of drinks.

‘So what,’ I continue once he’s safely back at the bar, ‘do you think my main problems are?’

‘Ah Lord, there’s the million-dollar question.’

‘Well?’

‘Well, there are two main ones.’

‘Which are?’

‘First up, you’ve married into one of the world’s most mysterious cults. They make the Sufis look transparent.’

‘Go on.’

‘They’re odd, the upper classes,’ she tells me. You don’t say, I think. ‘They’re not like us. It’s almost like an obsession. They’re trained up from birth to believe that property is the most important thing. I mean, they go on about manners and history and duty and that, but what really matters, deep down, is owning every scrap of land you might be able to see from your house. Even if it’s bankrupting you. Villages like Bourton, they were all built to service the big house and the estate, back in the days when everything had to be done by hand. It made sense, then. But of course, the estates themselves were actually producing money, so they could afford to keep all these servants in tied cottages. There’s no money in agriculture. Hasn’t been in – ooh – a hundred-odd years. But they’re stubborn. They just carry on like nothing’s changed and get angry because everything’s falling apart. Simple fact: your husband can’t afford to keep up these houses.’

‘That much I’d worked out.’

‘Yeah, but holding on to them is like holding on to their identity. Selling things, to people like that, is the equivalent of murdering your granny or something. They’d rather sit on it and let it fall apart than face reality and enter the modern world.’

Golly. Politics.

‘But I know Rufus. He’s not like that.’

‘No, I don’t think he is. If it was up to him he’d take a more realistic attitude. He’s the one who opened the place up to tourists, and believe me, the rows it took to get them to agree to that were monumental. They may say they’ve handed over the reins, but they never actually do.’

‘Well, that’s true enough. So what’s my second problem, then?’

‘Oh God,’ says Nessa. ‘This is the real humdinger. You’re up against the aristocratic matriarch.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s the womenfolk you have to watch out for,’ she says. ‘They’re the ones who keep the whole thing going. You’ll find that they’re the ones who are unfriendliest, the ones that suck in their breath when you’re not quite quite, the ones that adhere to all the unwritten rules, and write a few more in when you’re not looking. Comes from getting all their status from the men in their families. That’s why they’re so possessive of their sons. Their sons are their only hope of having any status once their old men are dead. Mary ain’t going to let go of Rufus without a fight. And especially not to a chick like you. And don’t fool yourself that she’s your only problem. Beatrice is just as bad, if not worse, and she rules that family with a rod of iron. It may be wrapped up in pink chiffon, but there’s iron in there. Just look at the way they’re all treating Tilly, just so Beatrice doesn’t get to find out about it.’

‘What’s the big deal, anyway? Surely the fact that she’s family counts for more than—’

‘Divorce. She’s fanatical about it. All those Edwardians are. You’ve got to remember, the Royals wouldn’t have a divorcee in their presence until so many of them did it themselves it got embarrassing, and the rest of the country spend half their time copycatting them. What the Royals do, they do. I think she thinks it’s a bigger shame than having a murderer in the family. Seriously, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she didn’t think it was
better
to have a murderer in the family. And besides, it’s bad financial sense, isn’t it? You get divorced, you break up the money. Wattestones didn’t get to be Wattestones by letting go of a single red cent. If she thought Tilly was bringing disgrace on their spotless record, she’d have her out in the snow before you could say Jack Sprat.’

‘That’s really …’ I try to think of a suitable epithet, give up the struggle and just say, ‘shitty.’

‘Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Still. You’ve got the best part of the family there. That Rufus, he’s a goer. He’s – oh, talk of the devil …’

And the door opens, and a familiar voice says: ‘Hello, Ian. I’m looking for an angry wife. Don’t suppose you’ve seen one, have you?’

There’s a silence you could throw a brick at.

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘There you are.’

Rufus doesn’t seem to want to look at me. Looks, instead, at the drinkers by the bar. Fifi has come in with him and is sitting by his ankles, and no-one has a word to say about it.

‘Thanks so much for looking after her,’ he says. ‘Bit of a mix-up at home, I’m afraid. Crossed wires everywhere.’

‘Well, it’s lucky she found us,’ says Ian.

I toy with the idea of telling him that it’s been a relief, that I’ve had a more relaxed time in his pub than I’ve had in the whole of the past few weeks down the hill, but I get the feeling that Rufus won’t want to hear it. ‘I’ve had a good time,’ I assure him, ‘seriously. You guys have been great.’

Another pause. I don’t seem to have improved matters any.

‘Well,’ says Rufus, still not looking at me, in that we-are-going-to-have-such-a-row-when-I-get-you-out-of-here voice, ‘are you ready to go now, darling?’

I get up from the table, discover, to my consternation, that I am not entirely sober. ‘Nessa’s been looking after me,’ I say.

‘So I see,’ says Rufus grimly. I don’t know what he’s got to be grim about. I don’t suppose
he’s
spent the evening dodging bunyips. I start to look about for my stuff. I don’t know how it happened, but I seem to have spread belongings over the entire room. My coat hangs over a bar stool, a small puddle on the floor beneath. My scarf is draped over one corner of a hunting print called
Gone Away
and my bag seems to have fetched up over on the bar, by the telephone. How long have I been here again? The clock says it’s going on eleven. Who’d’a thunk it?

I seem to have lost my shoes.

‘I seem to have lost my shoes,’ I inform the room.

‘They’re over there on the heater,’ says Del-boy. Well, blow me down. I don’t remember how they got there.

‘I’d better go get them, then,’ I say.

Rufus starts feeling about inside his jacket. ‘Thank you so much, Ian,’ he says. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ says Ian. ‘On the house.’

‘Come on,’ says Rufus, ‘she’s been here for ages.’

‘Too bloody right I have,’ I say from over by the heater. My shoes seem to have shrunk as they have dried out, and I’m having to stand on one foot and strain with an index finger to get the left one on at all. Have to catch on to the back of a settle before I plummet floorwards. God, I’ve let my yoga slip.

‘No, really,’ says Ian, ‘it’s fine.’

‘Well, if you’re sure …’ Rufus sounds doubtful, but I can see from the way he’s glancing at me that he’d rather get me out of here than get into an argument about it. ‘I’ll be taking her home, then. Come on, darling, if you’re ready …’

I give up on the shoe. Hobble over to take his hand. Rufus puts an arm around my shoulders, but I can feel that it’s more of a proprietorial gesture for good public form than it is one of affection.